Over a Coffee
by Mackinaw Weasel
Summary: The fatality of being allure-able is discussed over a coffee.


Valduggery one-shot fluff. Just a simple convo between the two detectives. :D

**EDIT! Thankyou for the reviews thus far! Found some sentence weirdness and missing words that ickle me. Blasted late nights writing, lol.**

******EDIT x2! And thanks to Mademise for spotting some spelling flaws! Much appreciated! :)**

Read on...

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Valkyrie sat in her cold iron chair on the large footpath outside a small coffee shop. There was hardly a soul that passed her, and that suited her just fine. It was a cool Dublin day, the sky wasn't clear, but the clouds that littered it were pleasant looking enough. Big, white, cotton ball types they were, meandering across the blue without a care in the world. Valkyrie found herself wishing, for a moment, that she could be a cloud like them – but a much more awesome cloud, kind of fist-shaped, picking on the smaller, slower clouds. She grinned at the thought.

"And what are you smiling about?" Skulduggery asked, emerging from the quaint coffee shop with an airy tinkle of the shop's bell.

"I'm a fist-shaped cloud," said Valkyrie dreamily, "Picking on all the inferior clouds."

Skulduggery followed her gaze to the cotton vapours, the façade's eyes shining today a deep blue, before looking back at her quizzically. "You really are a strange one, Valkyrie Cain," he said. Skulduggery pulled out the petite iron-wrought chair from under the coffee table and sat across from his partner. He straightened his newspaper from under the fold of his arm and began to read.

"Do leprechauns exist?" Valkyrie asked, looking at Skulduggery, the peevish face of his façade wrinkled its nose slightly before turning a page.

"I believe they're some kind of gold-mongering mafia group."

Valkyrie's eyes widened. "What!? Seriously? But we were always taught they gave you gold at the end or rainbows and stuff."

"Well education standards _are_ slipping," he murmured, taking the hat from his head and placing it on the table. He leaned back into his seat with a content sigh, his eyes on Valkyrie whose dreams seemed rather shattered. "Mythology is exactly what it says it is: a _myth_. Maybe hundreds of years ago Leprechauns marked their hidden treasure with rainbows but when word got out they just ended up hiding them better. As a result they saved more gold, got wealthier, and then became a family run organisation."

"Oh," said Valkyrie crestfallen. She frowned. "That sucks."

"That's business." Skulduggery went back to reading his newspaper as the coffee shop door tinkled open and a young waitress came towards them, all smiles and shirt skirts and blonde hair. Valkyrie bristled.

"Cappuccino for you, sir," she sang, stooping obscenely low to place down Skulduggery's steaming mug. "And the mocha," she all but threw Valkyrie's drink at her. She told them to enjoy, but her eyes were only on Skulduggery who responded with a curt nod and kind smile.

Valkyrie clicked her tongue angrily. "Do you _always _have to do that?"

Skulduggery looked over the rim of his mug innocently. "Do what?"

"Make those dumb bimbos smitten with you."

"I'm confident I have that effect on everyone," he said, taking a loud sip.

"No," Valkyrie corrected darkly, "you don't."

"And who would that unhappy person be?"

"Me, for starters."

"Ah, but you're miserably different."

"What?" Snapped Valkyrie, cheeks flushing. "Just because I got the wrong kind of curves and don't have blonde hair down to my butt cheeks?"

Skulduggery's dark eyebrows knitted in surprise. "No. Because you're _you_." He took another swallow from his drink. "And because I know you idolise me."

"I don't. You're annoying. Shut up."

"I would rather your infatuation over fancy any day. It gives me faith in today's youth."

"I said, shut up!" Valkyrie took a furious swallow of mocha. The liquid scolded her tongue but she was too proud to react to the pain, so she kept sculling. When she put the empty mug down Skulduggery spoke again.

"I've been told that young women get this strange urge to hate other women for their looks," he cocked his head. "Is that what's happening here? Because, if it is, don't be hurtful, not everyone can hope to come close to your beauty."

"Yeah," said Valkyrie gruffly, "except China."

"You could easily punch China's pretty face."

"There's nothing attractive about violence."

There was an odd pause, a slightly cocked eyebrow of the detective as he went for the last of his drink. "Well…I wouldn't put it in those precise words."

Valkyrie froze, watching as Skulduggery's cup lingered at his face far longer than it needed to be for a now empty mug.

"I'm sorry," she said, her eyebrows raised high in skepticism, "but, _what!?_"

Skulduggery blinked, coughed slightly, then raised his paper in front of him and continued reading.

"Oi!" Valkyrie slapped it down again. "Did you just admit to being attracted to violent women?"

The detective shrugged. "I don't deny there's a certain…_allure_ about a woman who can handle herself, and is dependable in battle."

"Am I dependable?"

"I'm sure not all people would think your one-hundred percent-"

"But _you_ find me dependable." Valkyrie interrupted.

"Within reason."

"Are you hinting that I am, _allure-able_?"

Skulduggery folded his newspaper. "I mean alluring in that way you get when you go to the top floor of a building, and you know that you're afraid of heights but you can't help but approach the windows and look down. Then, while you're looking down, you start to wonder, _what if I opened the window and fell?_ So you open it and the wind whips you out and you fall. And you're falling and falling, and you're thinking all the while_, this is a massive flaw of the human nature. I should reincarnate as a rabbit_. And then you hit the ground, and die." He closed his eyes, shaking his head sadly.

Valkyrie frowned, confused. "I'm, uh…confused by that description."

"That's my girl," Skulduggery smiled consolingly, standing up from his seat, taking his paper under one arm once more. "I'm going to go in and tip them."

"Tch, why bother."

"Because while I'm incredibly amazing in so many aspects I'm aware that my influences afflicted upon you may not be of the most amicable nature. So," he pulled a note from his breast pocket and flashed it briefly at Valkyrie, "I'm demonstrating qualities that I hope you will undertake regardless of how much you hate it. Plus, I'm a devilishly handsome gentleman." He laughed as Valkyrie threw him a gaze full of daggers.

When Skulduggery returned he found the chair empty and glanced up the street to Valkyrie, standing still in the centre of the footpath. She was looking at the sky again, her almond black eyes glossy; a slightly manic twist of a smile on her pale lips.

"I figured your dumb allure-description out!" Valkyrie said, with a charming sneer as Skulduggery approached her.

"Oh really?"

"Yup. My allure is fatal. That's what you meant, isn't it?"

"I'm afraid it's put me in the firing line of a more permanent death more times than I could care count." Skulduggery said, looking down at her. "Sixty-four times, by the way."

Valkyrie grinned broadly and hugged him. "You do count."

"Of course. It's my job to keep track of these things." He returned the hug.

Valkyrie let him go and skipped backwards. "You make a girl happy."

"How so?"

"Cause now I know you're fatally infatuated with me," she laughed.

"I don't think I said-" he watched as she bolted away from him, running jauntily up the street towards the Bentley. Skulduggery sighed deeply and shook his head, tutting softly.

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**Bird, bird. Bird is NOT the word. But if you write it in the review then that'd be pretty darn funny!**

**On a side note, if this cutesy one-shot made you barf and gouge your eyes out, then perhaps you might wanna read this one, _How It Ends _at s/8943453/1/How-It-Ends**

**:D Bon apatite!**


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